She walked to a street crossing, where she dropped the envelope into a
letter-box on a lamppost, and returned to find Arnaud Hallet waiting for
her. He said:
“Everyone agrees I'm serious, but actually you are worse than the
Assembly.” They went through the dining-room to the garden, and sat
on the stone step of a deep window. It was quite late, perhaps eleven
o'clock, and the fireflies, slowly rising into the night, had vanished.
Linda was cool and remote and grave, silently repeating and weighing the
phrases of her letter to Pleydon.
She realized that Arnaud Hallet was coming to like her a very great
deal; but she gave this only the slightest attention. She liked him,
really, and that dismissed him from serious consideration. Anyhow,
in spite of the perfection of his manner, Arnaud's careless dress
displeased her: his shoes and the shoulders of his coat were perpetually
dusty, and his hair, growing scant, was always ruffled. Linda understood
that he was highly intellectual, and frequently contributed historical
and genealogical papers to societies and bulletins, but compared with
Dodge Pleydon's brilliant personality and reputation, Pleydon surrounded
by the Susanna Nodas of life, Arnaud was as dingy as his shoes.
She wondered idly when the latter would actually try to love her. He was
holding her hand and it might well be to-night. Linda decided that he
would do it delicately; and when, almost immediately, he kissed her, she
was undisturbed. No, surprisingly, it had been quite pleasant. He hadn't
mussed her ribbons, nor her spirit, a particle. In addition he did not
at once become impossible and urgently sentimental; there was even a
shade of amusement on his heavy face.
“You appear to take a lot for granted,” he complained.
“I'd been wondering when it would happen,” she admitted coolly.
“It always does, then?”
“Usually I stop it,” she continued. “I don't believe I'll ever like
being kissed. Can you tell me why? No one ever has; they all think they
can bring me around to it.”
“And to them,” he added.
“But they end by being furious at me. I've been sworn at and called
dreadful names. Sometimes they're only silly. One cried; I hated that
the most.”
“Do you mean that you were sorry for him?”
“Oh, dear, no. Why should I be? He looked so odious all smeared with
tears.”
Arnaud Hallet returned promptly: “Linda, you're a little beast.” To
counteract his rude speech he kissed her again. “This,” he said with
less security, “threatens to become a habit. I thought, at forty-five,
that I was safely by the island of sirens, but I'll be on the rocks
before I know it.”
She laughed with the cool remoteness of running water.
“I wonder you haven't been murdered,” he proceeded, “in a moonless
garden by an elderly lawyer. Do you ever think of the lyric day when,
preceded by a flock of bridesmaids and other flowery pagan truck, you'll
meet justice?”
“Marriage?” she asked. “But of course. I have everything perfectly
planned--”
“Then, my dear Linda, describe him.”
“Very straight,” she said, “with beautiful polished shoes and brushed
hair.”
“You ought to have no trouble finding that. Any number of my friends
have one--to open the door and take your things. I might arrange a very
satisfactory introduction for everybody concerned--a steady man well on
his way to preside over the pantry and table.”
“You're not as funny as usual,” Linda decided critically. “That, too,
disturbs me,” he replied. “It looks even more unpromising for the near
future.”